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“ANDREW, all you do is bounce the ball,” Antonio Levane, pretending he was dribbling a ball, said with chagrin one day to his son.

Who could blame the father for showing some distress? By now it was clear the 16-year-old wouldn’t be following in his professional footsteps. Antonio had gotten nowhere fast trying to teach Andrew how to play the cello and saxophone. The lessons hadn’t gone too far, six months, if that. Already everything else in the life of the 6-2 strikingly handsome teenager had long since become a secluded second to his irresistible pull to basketball. Though frustrated by Andrew’s choice, Antonio surely couldn’t help but understand how a passion to perform can consume, surely identified with his son’s love of the game, because the father possessed a magnificent obsession of his own. Five feet short, he manipulated the double base for conductor Arturo Toscanini.

Irmo, S.C., is eight miles west of Columbia. Like many people, young and old, Andrew “Fuzzy” Levane, wife, Kathleen and two daughters, Denise and Teresa, left Port Washington more than a year ago and moved south out of necessity:

You can’t beat the price of housing (Teresa and her children live nearby her parents and sister); taxes are lower; gas is cheaper; who cares how much heating oil is up?; no winter clothes to buy; and every day you wake up amazed the weather is so beautiful, though summer swelter tends to keep close to the air conditioner.

“My friends who used to sit with me on my stoop in Flatbush never would’ve believed I’d end up in Irmo,” Fuzzy said, emitting a snicker. “I never thought I’d get used to such a change but I really love it down here.”

Despite his age, six months shy of 88 (born in 1920, the same year and the same borough as Red Holzman, his lifelong friend and roundball partner), moving, by this time, comes easy to the Levane family.

“It was no big deal,” shrugged Kathleen, an eye-catching singer from Scranton, Pa., when they met. “According to Fuzzy’s figures this is the 14th time we’ve relocated.”

You name the league and Fuzzy either played or coached in it, probably both, and for several teams, including the Knicks, and almost every step of the way Holzman was right there beside him.

In fact, Red once replaced him. Fuzzy had brought in his main man as the 10th man. Holzman was the “logical” replacement since he was older than anyone else. That fluke jump-started his coaching career. Red later worked under Fuzzy who succeeded Vince Boryla as Knick coach (’58-’60). Years later, when Red earned some juice he hired Fuzzy as his scout.

At any rate, Milwaukee Hawks (nee St. Louis/Atlanta) owner Ben Kerner fired Fuzzy about 30 games into the ’53-’54 season “for my own good.” He’d never heard that one before or since.

“We weren’t that good to begin with. Then Ben sold Mel Hutchins, our leading rebounder and scorer, to Fort Wayne for 25G,” Fuzzy said, still angry at being short-changed after all these years. “Then Ben sold Jack Nichols to Boston for 15G.”

Attempting to interject some objectivity, Kathleen said, “The team would’ve collapse had he not come up with some money.”

Fuzzy wouldn’t hear it. “I worked for two men, Ben Kerner and Ned Irish (Knicks founder and their executive VP from ’46 to ’74) who knew just enough basketball to make them dangerous.”

Now we were talking! In between bites; Denise had whipped up a delicious with no notice. Sitting in a room where bottles of medicine lined a deck (“That ain’t nothin'” Fuzzy chuckled, opening a cabinet and pulling out a pile of pills stuffed into baggies), we could see Game 4 of the Yankees-Indians flickering on the widescreen TV. On the room’s spacious interior wall was an array of mesmerizing framed photos of Fuzzy’s life.

Many of Fuzzy’s beguiling stories have been told and retold at protracted New York City dinners hosted by Joe Taub and attended by Larry Doby, Larry “The Scout” Pearlstein, Jack “Dutch” Garfinkel and hangers-on (of every word) like myself.

I’m well aware of the astounding fact that five of James Madison High School’s undefeated PSAL champions – twins Lenny and Howard Rader, Larry Baxter, Stan Waxman and Freddie Lewis – also played pro ball.

I’ve long since memorized Springfield’s Hall of Fame players coached by Fuzzy – Bob Pettit, Lenny Wilkens, Cliff Hagen, Holzman, Bob Houbregs and Jim Boehim (Eastern League). Richie Guerin, he intensely advocates, should be among them. “He was as good or better than many of the guards who’ve been inducted.”

At 60, Fuzzy underwent an echo cardiogram. It was discovered he’d been born with a hole in his heart and never had the proper amount of oxygen. He was told he could’ve dropped dead any time he stepped out on the floor. In fact, it was a miracle that didn’t happen.

After Kerner fired Fuzzy (the first time; the second was in ’62 after 60 games) he helped out Harrison as a favor with the draft and trades.

The Hawks had the No. 1 pick in ’55 and took Duquesne’s Dick Ricketts. The Royals owned the No. 2 slot. Fuzzy had seen St Francis (Loretta, Pa.) forward Maurice Stokes (a husky Elgin Baylor) dominate the NIT. Harrison had other ideas but allowed Fuzzy and coach Bobby Wanzer to prevail.

Round two (No. 10, overall) Harrison wanted to take Niagara’s Ed Fleming. Fuzzy had seen Cincinnati’s Jack Twyman play and thought he was a perfect small forward for those days. Wanzer asked Harrison to listen to his unpaid consultant and wound up getting Fleming round three.

Some things are just meant to happen. When Stokes was stricken with encephalitis in ’58, his third year in the league (averaged 16.4 rebounds and 17.3 points), Twyman became his guardian angel until the day he died, April 6, 1970.

Now that’s one story I’d never heard before. Another spicy one revolves around the ’56 draft. Harrison told Fuzzy to approach the Knicks about a trade. He was willing to give the pick of the litter for Walter Dukes and 15G. Irish’s reply: “We’ll take Dukes but you can shove the 15G.”

“From what I’d seen of Bill Russell I loved him,” Fuzzy said. “Scoring obviously wasn’t his forte but his defense and rebounding had carried San Francisco to two NCAA championships. What was there not to like?”

This time Harrison didn’t listen. He drafted Duquesne’s Si Green and Kerner traded Russell’s draft rights to the Celtics for Easy Ed Macauley and the draft rights to Hagen.

As Fuzzy said, Kerner and Irish (Harrison, too, apparently) knew just enough basketball to be dangerous. But don’t get him wrong; he’s not complaining.

“I get tired these days just brushing my teeth. Not bad for a guy who all he did was bounce the ball.”